


like flowers on a dogwood tree, blush with blame you took from me

by honey_butter



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, Multi, a bit of angst, also a heavy dose of italics and parentheses, damien is an anxious bean, saint damien talks a bit at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 00:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20732984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_butter/pseuds/honey_butter
Summary: “And I you. Is our Rilla here?” Damien fought back the fluttering that was starting to begin again in his chest, if both of them were here already that reduced the amount of time he could put this off—“Yes, she is in the room below us. I can have Keep fetch her for you, if you’d like.”Damien breathed in his smell.(oh saint, please grant me your tranquility…)“I have something I wanted to show you, both of you.”In which Damien finally gives in to a lifelong longing, Arum does not understand what all the fuss is about, and Rilla wants her boys to know how much she loves them.





	like flowers on a dogwood tree, blush with blame you took from me

**Author's Note:**

> hello everyone!! 
> 
> quick trigger/content warning before we get into the story: this work deals heavily with internalized homophobia and internalized queerphobia that our lovely sir damien is struggling with. please take care of yourselves if this is something that would trigger or even slightly bother you!!
> 
> title from belly of the deepest love by tow'rs

Damien stood before the entrance of the Keep, his heart fluttering in his chest, hands pulling worriedly at the strap of his rucksack. _ (saint damien, your tranquility… _) He fought the urge to knock on the wall of vines, He still wasn’t used to this whole sentient-plant-that-is-also-his-boyfriend’s-mom thing. Rilla, unsurprisingly, had taken to it like a fish to water, her little hut outside of the citadel nearly full to bursting with jars of dirt from this exact spot. 

“Uh, hello? Key… uh, Keep? Yes, hi? Is, um, er, can I come in?”

The Keep trilled at him comfortingly, an opening growing in the wall and a few vines beckoning for him to enter

“Thank you, uh, you’re looking rather vibrant today. I so love rosemallows.” Damien stepped through the doorway, his hands carding through his hair.

A tone sounded that clearly conveyed an _ oh-you’re-too-kind _ coo.

Damien absentmindedly smiled, “Keep, would you be so kind as to show me where my darling flowers are?”

Another harmonious tone and a vine reached out to loosely pick him up by the waist, carrying him through the air and over multiple structures within the Keep. Damien bit his lip so as not to cry out. (_ saint damien, saint damien… _) This was not the first time the Keep had done this, but he was still no where close to getting used to it. 

Keep placed him gently on one of its green, elevated platforms, in front of a door of what Damien now recognized as one of its many green houses. Now that he was here, though, his nerves were even worse than when he’d been _ flying _ through the air.

“Honeysuckle, is that you?” 

Damien gulped at Arum’s— _ his _ Arum who would never judge him and never be disappointed in him and— no, Damien, focus, where were you, ah right, Arum’s voice. ( _ your tranquility, saint damien, your tranquility… _) How he had missed his lily’s voice. Damien hadn’t seen him in weeks, months maybe, what with his own missions from the queen, Arum’s various no-longer-evil monster requirements, and both of their already messed up sleep schedules.

“Arum! Oh, my love, how I’ve missed you.” Damien stepped into the green house, his heart still fluttering and stomach still queasy but quieter now. An undercurrent rather than a flood.

Arum stood before one of his many plants, facing the door, facing Damien. He dropped (_ Let’s face it, _ Damien thought, _ Arum would never drop a plant, but for the sake of a story one had to make certain exaggerations. _) what he had been working on and rounded the table to Damien, using all of his arms to scoop him up.

Damien loved it when Arum hugged him, especially when he hugged him _ like this _. One hand in his hair, one wrapped around his upper back, one around his lower, one cupping his thighs just enough to lift him off the ground, Arum’s head buried in Damien’s neck. Damien could feel his warm breath on his shoulder, the rough slide of his scales on his skin. Damien breathed in his scent: earthy, flower-filled, gorgeous.

“Tktktktktk,” Arum purred happily into his neck. 

Damien felt a thrill fill his body, only growing as Arum’s forked tongue darted out and licked a small stripe on his skin.

“It’s been too long, Honeysuckle. Amaryllis and I have been lonely without you.”

“And I you. Is our Rilla here?” Damien fought back the fluttering that was starting to begin again in his chest, if both of them were here already that reduced the amount of time he could put this off—

“Yes, she is in the room below us. I can have Keep fetch her for you, if you’d like.”

Damien breathed in his smell. (_ oh saint, please grant me your tranquility… _) “I have something I wanted to show you, both of you.”

Aum untucked his head and stared straight into Damien’s eyes, Damien would never be able to get over those violet eyes, “Are you hurt, honeysuckle?”

“No, no, nothing like that, I only… I…” Damien scrambled to find the words without giving himself away. “You have dirt on your face.”

He brought a hand up and wiped at it, continuing to stroke a finger over his scales even once he’d wiped it all off. 

“Honeysuckle…” Arum’s voice was soft but warning.

And Damien broke, (_ saint damien, i have been longing, i have been wanting… _ ) “My lily, there is a fire within me. A fire even my saint cannot stop with his cooling waters. I’ve fought it for years, years and years and _ years _, but the fire has consumed me body and soul and I cannot win. I have given myself over to it, just as I gave myself over to my love for you, for our Rilla…”

“Honeysuckle, just what is this fire?”

“I, I would like to show you. You and Rilla.”

Arum’s tongue slipped over his lips, “Fine. But this had better be quick. _ Keep, _ call for Rilla, please.”

(_ oh saint, why was i formed in this manner. i thought that i was shaped after your likeness but this, _ this _ is not natural. it is not normal. and i am drowning in it, oh saint, i am drowning… _)

Arum kept Damien’s gaze locked on his own. Damien’s heart was no longer fluttering but trying to beat out of his chest, his hands itched to fiddle with his satchel, with its contents; he settled for resting them on Arum’s neck. There was something about boys’ necks that was different from girls’, Damien had never noticed it before Arum but now… now he couldn’t keep his hands off of the soft scales there.

“Arum, what is it, I was in the middle of— Damien! Damien, you’re here?!” Rilla ran to them and both of them let go with one side of their body, pulling Rilla into the hug.

They’d had to practice this, this hug, whose hands went where so that all of them were supported, whose neck belonged to whose face, how to balance all three of their hearts all together. They’d had the time to practice, the time to make mistakes, and the time to make this just as perfect as it was now. (It had always been perfect, no matter its flaws. Rilla and Arum were always perfect to him, perfect in their imperfection.) 

“Our _ honey _suckle has something to tell us, Amaryllis.”

“Is that so?”

Damien winced slightly at Arum’s slight bite, at Rilla’s upturned eye brow, at their supportive judgement.

“Not to tell you, for once I don’t have anything to tell you.”

“Really, Damien, nothing?”

“No, I have something I want to show you. Something I haven’t even been able to show myself.”

Rilla combed her fingers through the ends of his ponytail. He leaned his head into it. (_ they love me, saint, but i don’t love me. i can’t even look at me… _)

“Damien, breathe.”

“Honeysuckle.”

Damien heaved out a breath, withtracted his arms, brought them to his satchel, and began to toy with the small hole in the bag, with what was inside.

“Is there, is there a place for me to change?”

Arum’s eyes narrowed, Rilla’s brow furrowing for a moment before her eyes started to shine with understanding. Damien hoped it was understanding. (_ oh saint what have i done. i have destroyed what hope of love i had, they will not like what they see. saint i am beyond your tranquility… _)

“Just through there. You know this, honeysuckle.” Arum gestured with one clawed finger towards a side door. Damien recognized it as the connector to Arum’s bedchambers, to _ their _ bedchambers.

“Ah, yes, thank you.” (_ your tranquility, your tranquility, your tranquility… _)

He slipped through the door, his heart pounding, his stomach squirming. Once he had safely entered the bedroom, Damien tore the satchel from his shoulders and threw it open, letting its contents finally spill out into the world.

A dress. A beautiful, silken thing with layers upon layers of draping fabric. Blues and greens and yellows and golds, all folded over one another and collected into a high waist by a purple ribbon.

Damien had ordered this dress months ago from a seamstress within the citadel, under the guise as a gift to Rilla. He had seen the advertisement with exclamations of custom designs, he had seen the beautiful hand-dyed fabrics that lined the window beside that, and he had _ yearned _.

It took him time to get his armor off, to undo all of the leather straps and finally get to the complicated ties on his shirt. It took him longer still to unfold the dress, to smooth it out, to pull it on and then tighten it, cinching it in to hug his waist, watching the way it flared out around his hips.

Once the dress was perfectly fitted to his body, the way he had helped Rilla adjust hers so many times, he began to untie his hair.

Arum had only seen him with his hair completely down twice, and both of those times had been under very different circumstances. Rilla had seen it more often, although she knew by now that it was a rarity, something to be cherished. Damien wasn’t very good at keeping things to himself, but this was one of the few experiences he saved for his loved ones.

Damien threaded his fingers through it, shaking it out so that it hung in a loose bob around his head, the tips just grazing his shoulders. Saints, he felt free. Damien pulled the last piece of fabric left in his satchel and laid it loosely over his head, the purple silk of the headscarf sliding sweetly against his skin (_ wrong, wrong, wrong, oh so wrong. but also good and whole and sweet and powerful. saint damien why must it all be so confusing… _)

His hands were shaking, although it shouldn’t have been important, his palms were sweating solely due to the fact that he didn’t have any matching shoes much less with him, and he swore he could hear their heckles already starting to fill his ears.

He opened the door.

Arum and Rilla were turned towards each other, murmuring in a worried tone that Damien couldn’t quite make out. He smoothed his hands nervously over the skirt and cleared his throat before he could back out.

Rilla looked up first, eyes immediately going shiny as she brought a hand up to her mouth, “_ Oh _, Damien.”

Damien gulped, toying with the edge of the ribbon secured around his waist. (_ saint damien, your tranquility… _)

At Rilla’s outburst, Arum looked up, his tail flicking just slightly as he cast his eyes over Damien. He said nothing.

Damien cracked, “All my life, all my life, I have tried to fight it, to hide it. I have seen men like this executed in the square. I have seen the shame that their families have dealt with, more shame for having been associated with such a person than grief over their loss. My flowers, I fear that I have brought such shame upon you. If they knew, the citadel—”

“Honeysuckle, stop.” Arum cut him off, his eyes even more narrowed now than they had been before.

Damien heaved out a breath. Arum reached out to take ahold of his hands, to stop their nervous twitches.

“Damien, you’re beautiful,” Rilla murmured, lifting one of her hands to caress his headscarf.

Damien’s chest shook.

“You’re beautiful,” Rilla repeated again, touching his cheek now.

Arum leaned forward and nibbled lightly at his nose, “Honeysuckle, is this what you’re so worked up about? Because you want to wear a dress?”

“Well, yes…”

“Then I don’t see what the problem is. Even if you’re worried what your citadel might think, I am a monster, Rilla an exile, and by being in this relationship we have made it quite clear that we don’t listen to all of your mundane rules.”

“I know, Arum, but I… I _ hate _ myself for this. For being a man and a knight and enjoying the feeling of silk skirts against my skin. For contradicting my citadel. Because it is _ my _ citadel, Lord Arum. You and Rilla may not belong to it but the citadel and its stupid, _ mundane _ rules belong to _ me _ . And because of this I cannot live with myself. I have been told by my father, by my friends, by my queen whom I pledged my bow to, that this was wrong and unnatural, that _ I _ am wrong and unnatural. If he saw me, if he truly saw me, my saint would _ weep _—”

Arum cut him off with a kiss, or as much of a human kiss as they ever managed, pressing his hard scales against Damien’s soft, quivering lips.

“Honeysuckle, I see you and I do not cry. I see you, how beautiful you are, and I feel my heart fill with such emotion that I fear it will burst.”

Rilla pulls one of his hands from where it was bunching the fabric of his dress into her own. “Damien, it doesn’t matter what the queen, what Angelo, what,” Rilla spits the next words, “_ your father _, will think. I love you, Damien. Arum loves you. And, if you want to wear dresses and headscarves, that love won’t dry up or disappear, it’ll only grow stronger.”

“I love you, Honeysuckle.” Arum murmured, taking Damien’s other hand.

(_ oh saint of calming tides, of soft love, of gentle stillness, oh saint who saw the monsters in the waves and did not run, do not abandon me. _)

“I love you, Damien.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

Damien stood there, in the most gorgeous dress he’s ever seen, surrounded by the most gorgeous creatures he’d ever seen, and surrounded by their beautiful, contagious, _ gorgeous _ love. Damien stood there, his heart beating a thousand miles a minute, hands quivering, but head held high, shoulders back. Damien stood there, and for once he did not want, because he simply _ was._

(_i will never abandon you. _ _ my child, you are made of love. of my love and the love of your family. of a love of writing, of a love of protecting. of a love so big and brave that even i cannot ever make tranquil. my child you are loved, and you are love. and while you may not do so now, in time you will grow to love yourself the way you are loved by so many, wholly and without any fear. _)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! this was a blast to write (my first completed tpp piece and sir damien rambling all in one? fire). all mistakes in this work are my own, if there's anything too glaring please point it out to me!! i tried my best with editing but i wrote this at midnight so there are definitely some errors.
> 
> as always, comments are extremely welcome!! they seriously make my day (more like my week lol), don't be shy to leave one.
> 
> i'm on tumblr at [labelleofbelfastcity](https://labelleofbelfastcity.tumblr.com) come yell at me about tpp!!


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